My wife hates my daughter. It’s tearing me apart.

[Sqf27q]

My wife and I married 6 months ago.
She has a 17 year old daughter who lives with us full time.
I have a 6 year old daughter from a previous relationship who stays with us 2 nights a week on average.

Ever since I proposed to my wife 18 months ago my daughter has just stopped interacting with her. When she comes and stays she says hello and goodnight/goodbye and that’s about it. When asked why she says she doesn’t know and is reluctant to talk about it. I’m sure her mother has said something to cause this but both her and my daughter deny this.

It’s causing massive stress and arguments in the house. My wife dreads the time my daughter stays with us. There have been instances where she has banned her from staying overnight and tries to alter or cancel the allocated time my daughter stays.

When my daughter is with us my wife never wants to do anything with us. 2-3 days befor she will start an argument and the whole weekend is spent walking on egg shells with me trying to give both of them equal attention, something my wife claims I rarely achieve.

My wife’s 17 year old daughter and I get on well and I always make an effort to involve myself in her life and take an active interest in her wellbeing. (Her natural dad died when she was 5) I try my best to me a positive male influence.

Whenever my daughters name comes up in conversation my wife is derogatory towards her and I struggle to listen to it. I rarely talk to my wife about my daughter and any contact between me and my daughters mother is always done away from my wife as she massively resents her.

I understand it is upsetting for my wife to be ignored in her own house by my daughter and I have tried everything to get to the bottom of the reasons why. But I feel the relationship between my daughter and I is deteriorating and I’m petrified she will one day say she doesn’t want to come and stay because of my wife.

I genuinely don’t know what to do.

Does anyone else have a similar situation or any advice ?

OP you knew your daughter started to ignore your wife to be when you said that you were going to get married yet I think you just thought it would just go away. It hasn’t.

You know there’s a problem, and only you can really make the changes necessary.

If my son had stopped talking to his step dad I would have spent a lot of time assessing and working with him to find out more. My son has had issues with his step dad, and has told me and I’ve gone ahead and had words with both parties if needed, or changed the way we do things.

When we moved in his step sister was mean to him, he could not see but I could, so I made sure I supervised them closely, monitored it and stopped any meanness. It’s hard work!

Now your situation has become ingrained and I’m not sure how you are going to tackle it but you must. If you want to save your marriage and your father relationship then it’s going to take a lot of work. Talk to everyone, talk to your ex even, talk to a counsellor, spend a lot of one to one time with your daughter, tell your wife she needs to give you space and stop being negative, remind her the child is only 6. It might not be fixable. Both your daughter and your wife and step daughter and you need to find some respect and harmony, if you cannot then I’d leave and parent your child.

There have been instances where she has banned her from staying overnight and tries to alter or cancel the allocated time my daughter stays
Whenever my daughters name comes up in conversation my wife is derogatory towards her and I struggle to listen to it

And you MARRIED her????

Honestly, have my first LTB.

Why would you be with someone who treats your lite girl this way??

Children need more attention than adults. Six year olds especially.

Ever since I proposed to my wife 18 months ago my daughter has just stopped interacting with her. When she comes and stays she says hello and goodnight/goodbye and that’s about it. When asked why she says she doesn’t know and is reluctant to talk about it.

And yet you married your now wife? You put her first and you are continuing to put your wife first - knowing that your small daughter is struggling. Shame on you

Your wife sounds horrible. When someone shows you who they are, believe them.

Your wife sounds very unpleasant and your daughter deserves better.

Your daughter is 6yo and stays with you twice a week. In that situation I would think it appropriate to give her the majority of your attention for the little time she is with you. Your wife is there the rest of the time and no doubt gets attention galore then so why she needs to try and muscle it off a 6yo girl for a small amount of time each week is weird (being very polite there).

If it was me I’d be giving the wife an ultimatum.

Your wife's behaviour in this situation is shocking. You need to make it clear that her behaviour is unacceptable. Daughter has to come first.

@AutumnCrow

Yes I can see the 'positive male influence' line now.

I swear I read the OP 3 or 4 times and didn't see it!

Thank you.

So the OP is a man then.

Still not been back to the thread though!

The reason your daughter most likely stop talking to your wife is because she picked up her hatred for her much earlier than you did. I also picked up that my step mother wished I didn't exist when my dad, in love, was oblivious to it. It hit him a few years later. I was a kid who didn't want to cause any trouble or upset anyone so I would never have dared to say this to him.

Of course it got worse when you announced you were getting married, she knew then it wasn't going to go away.

Leave her and then work on your self esteem and boundaries. You've set the bar pretty low when choosing to settle for this woman.

I have a 5 year old, I imagine that if he were to give anyone the silent treatment for that amount of time something really bad must have happened. Has she had any time alone with your daughter? Any opportunity to do/say anything nasty to her?

You should have never married this women OP, a good parent would not be able to sustain a relationship with someone who has so much hatred towards thier child.

I suspect OP will just plod along in this situation until the daughter no longer wants to see him and the stepmum will have got what she wanted. I doubt OP will even return to the thread.

Hello OP.

You are in a very tricky situation and I can tell you want to avoid upsetting anyone, and I can understand how important your wife is to you.

But please let me tell you that every day your daughter spends wondering what her reality is, whether she can trust the person she is supposed to love because you do, trying to avoid saying certain things (in both houses - she’s in a mine field at your ex’s if she is as bitter as she sounds) for fear of upsetting an adult, trying to get some control over her life and feelings, feeling like she is the second choice and feeling like she is somehow to blame for the whole thing, will damage her. There is no question about that. If it continues and she doesn’t receive help in dealing with all of these feelings, it will affect her right into her adulthood.

As the three adults in this situation, you all need to ensure it stops immediately. Tricky with your ex but whatever she’s feeling, it’s unfair of her to make negative comments to your daughter. You can’t stop protecting your daughter, even for a second. And your wife needs to deal with her own, very complicated and real emotions, however she can. If she can’t do that, you need to seriously think about what you are going to do about that. I have seen too many adults broken by one parent choosing a new partner over them (or failing to think about anything from the child’s point of view).

It sounds like such a difficult situation.

But, as the adults in the room (to quote MSNBC), you three need to step up and stop the effects of the situation affecting your daughter (and quite possibly your older daughter too). And you need to do it NOW. It really is that urgent.

And where is OP?

Starts the thread then buggers off.

Perhaps he doesn't like reading what people have said.

Just a question, are you attributing your DW's issues with your behaviour to her hating your DC?

I only ask because when I bring up issues with my DP like not back me up or changing our contact schedule without telling me or discussing it he tries to turn it around into me 'hating' the children, which could not be further from the truth and quite frankly is enraging. Its an easy way to not actually listen to what you are being told.

I would say 98% of the times in the early days when I have found having my DSC difficult or was finding myself getting stressed and avoidant it's because of the way that he is acting, not the children.

I may be reading into it but I get the impression your child is ignoring her, you haven't told your child it's unacceptable and are possibly facilitating it further. What was their relationship like before you got engaged?

This situation is such a hard one. My eldest child and our youngest child live with us. I have a stepdaughter too. To begin with everything was easy and perfect, and I feel that's because we as step parents try to over compensate and make a good impression etc, and the sk are usually well behaved as it's a new situation for them. But in time they relax and we relax and that's when the friction starts. And I got to a point of resentment that we suddenly had no spare money for our family and I saw the resident kids miss out, resentment we have to plan our time around a child who can at times be unappreciative, frustrated at the ex wife constantly calling or having to talk to her. It is normal for your wife to have these feelings. It has taken me a good while to get over mine purely because I am wanting to protect my children and give them the best. I don't believe she is doing it out of spite. I hate when my partner constantly talks of his daughter because to me we give up a lot for his daughter, revolve all our weekends and spare time around his daughter and I do just want to have time where we can just be us. Yes we knew our partners had kids etc however it's not as black and white as people may seem. Have you asked what it is wrong and why she feels these feelings it could be something simple like your discipline ways etc. You made a commitment to your wife aswell as your daughter and it can be hard to juggle. I struggle with the concept that everyone in the world seems to think step kids should be prioritised over resident kids when that shouldn't be the case and sometimes I feel my resentment was caused by outsider influences. Maybe your wife just needs some additional support.

I suspect you are the problem here. You are the one who has a relationship with both your DD and with your wife yet you’ve allowed this situation to develop. You’ve allowed your DD to ignore your wife for 18 months without making it clear that’s unacceptable. Now your wife is at the end of her tether and her behaviour is affecting you all.

You need to be clear with your DD that she doesn’t need to love her step mum but she does need to be polite and respectful at all times, which includes saying hello, please, thank you etc. As she would to anyone else in your house - those are the house rules.

And once that happens you need to ask your DW to play her part, stop with the negativity and rejoin family events.

Ps. I don’t think the posts telling you to leave your wife are helpful. More upheaval is the last thing your DD needs. Step families are complex and the dynamics are often challenging in the early years but well worth putting in the hard yards. If in doubt get external help from someone with experience of step families.

I was the wife in this situation when my teen step children started ignoring me. They wouldn’t discuss it, Dh refused to confront them for fear of them not wanting to visit and after years of the same, I was resentful and probably said some spiteful things to dh. It didn’t end well and dh only sees them out now.

Op if you’re still here, invest the time and trouble to get to the bottom of it with your dd and confide in your wife. She will then have the opportunity to prove she’s willing to work together with you to build a relationship with her. If your dd won’t talk to you, perhaps a gentle, experienced hold councillor could help.

We are talking about a six year old, who was probably 4 when this all started. What on earth must have happened for a child of 4 to hold such a grudge. Most children that age could be swayed by a kinder egg for goodness sake.

Something, somewhere has gone very wrong for her to have kept up the silent treatment even for a day. I'd be looking much, much deeper at this situation.

SunnyintheSun has said exactly what I came on here to say.

The issue here is you OP. You should have nipped this in the bud the instant your dd started sending your wife to Coventry under her own roof.

I'd go for some counselling as a family. You are in desperate need of it.

lunar not singling you out particularly but the comment that a child this age can be bribed with a kinder egg is exactly the sort of comment that both minimises what is potentially happening here and how complex these situations are to deal and fix, for all involved.

If you spend time with counsellors/ advisors who specialise in step families and young children, this phenomenon is actually very common. Especially where there is the chance that one of the parents is not wholly accepting of the new relationship/ role of the step parent. That is by no means the only factor that can lead to children behaving in this way, children themselves can have conflicting loyalties.

Bribing a child with a kinder egg fixes nothing. This isn’t a child having a tantrum that needs coaxing out of it. There are underlying emotional issues and there are a variety of ways to deal with it. None of which include the parent allowing this dynamic to continue for 18 months, none of which include that parent coming on here and saying that his wife hates his DD. And acting like the poor me victim.

It’s diabolical parenting. Deplorable that it’s been allowed to continue for 18 months. For both the child and the step parent.

The truth to what you do say Lunar is that actually the child’s young age means that with the proper intervention and techniques, this could have passed relatively quickly. Asking a 6 year old child direct questions like ‘why are you acting this way’ shows a complete lack of insight into children. The emotions of this child will be complex and most likely she doesn’t know why she’s acting the way she is. She can’t articulate the why. And she needs gentle help to work through this, from the parents.

I think this is a horrid situation for all involved and I too place the responsibility of this squarely at the feet of the OP.

@TooSassy i think @lunar1 was making exactly the same point. She's not suggesting that OP bribes his daughter and that this is some trivial matter. She says exactly the opposite at the end of her post.

That is the point I was making, this might not have been an easy fix, but why has nobody tried? There really has to be something deeply wrong for this to have got where it did. A small bribe wouldn't fix underlying problems, but would be a start to a conversation.

I have no idea what trauma a child so young could have gone through for this behaviour to go on, but it doesn't paint any of the adults in her life in a good light.

My own father could of written this exact post 10 years ago with me and his wife. She hated me and would be horrible and in result I didn't like her back nor was I probably that pleasant. Kids pick up more than you realise OP. Just to put it in perspective, I went into hospital as my appendix burst and I was very very unwell. My mother (Fathers Ex wife) called him to tell him, they lived 5 minutes from the hospital. His wife said if he went to the hospital to see me she would divorce him, he did and yes they got divorced straight after! Please don't let it get as bad as that!

Children can be very perceptive and it sounds like this woman is openly displaying unpleasant behaviour, and so the dc is obviously picking up on it. My ds when young had regular access with my ex who lived with new gf. I was never negative about her, but ds just disliked her for a variety of reasons. This isn’t about beating SMs with a stick. It’s unacceptable behaviour from any adult regardless of their position in the family.